Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Kristen Sych visits the Academy

Our final class of the year was completed last night, and this makes for a good opportunity to post an update about a recent guest we had at the school.

Kristen Sych hails from Canada and was personally committed at a young age to pursue a career as a character animator. He eventually wound up in Los Angeles and enrolled at the Academy early in our history. His strengths as an artist, an animator and as a communicator made him an ideal candidate for an animation instructor, so Kristen filled that role for us for a long time.

Here he is in the company of some of our students and staff. He's the fellow in the center in front of the dark band in the curtain.

Kristen related how his foundation in traditional hand drawn animation and the fundamentals therein made him a stronger computer animator when he made the jump to CGI. He also spoke about how the medium of computer animation has made him a better animator by freeing him from worrying about every nuance of his drawing and focusing instead on the action, activity and performance of the character he's animating. He's currently an animator at Activision.

Kristen doesn't maintain a website or blog. He's in solid demand and hasn't had the chance to develop his Web presence yet. When he does, I'll be sure to post a link.

Thanks for spending time with us Kristen. Your visit was educational, inspiring, informative and entertaining. We hope to see you again very soon.